


Rule #1

by GoldenThreads



Category: New Mutants, X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Alcohol, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Team Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-07
Updated: 2013-08-07
Packaged: 2017-12-22 17:32:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/916063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenThreads/pseuds/GoldenThreads
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Warlock inspires a very special kind of normal, and the New Mutants wonder when, exactly, the evening took a turn for the weird.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rule #1

**Author's Note:**

> Drama-free domestic hijinks set somewhere around the tail end of v3.

“For the last time, ‘Berto, we are _not_ playing strip poker,” says Dani, her voice edging dangerously close to the sharp cut of battle commands. “End of story.”

“We never get to do anything fun,” Roberto grumbles, reaching forward to grab another can of beer before he slumps back against the cushions of the living room couch.

Amara glowers at him from across the coffee table, her feet kicked up on the plush footstool Warlock made to appease her. After a 10-hour shift at work she’d been looking forward to a girls’ night out on the town, not a movie marathon with disgustingly cheap beer and Roberto’s smarmy grin. They can’t even decide on a movie to watch, and no one wants to brave the monsoon-like downpour outside for better drinks — well, no one but Warlock, and they’re not _that_ desperate.

“It’s not fun when we all know exactly how it ends,” she snaps. Dani nods, and Warlock backs their play by bobbing his head even more enthusiastically.

“All in the luck of the cards, baby!” Roberto spreads his arms in a grandiose shrug, but the beer’s kicking in and Nate has to duck to avoid getting smacked in the face.

“Bullshit. Just look at our players: Nate’s only wearing two pieces of clothing,” Amara shoots Nate a suspicious glance that says she’s only 90% certain he’s wearing anything under those tight leather pants, “and I doubt he knows what poker is, so he’ll be out in an instant. Warlock is naked to start, and we all know Doug would cheat.”

“All excellent points,” Doug pipes up eagerly.

“Which leaves you showing off your…” Roberto puffs up his chest and flashes a grin, but Amara just rolls her eyes as she continues, “your _whatever_ while you try to get a look at our—”

“Hold on.” Nate cuts in, jerking a thumb in Warlock’s direction. “Warlock’s not naked.”

A hush falls over the room.

The others glance among themselves in awkward concern. It’s been months since Nate teamed up with them, surely he can’t only be noticing it now.

“Uhh,” offers Roberto as a model of eloquence. He looks to Dani for leadership, but she passes the buck by gesturing to their resident Technarch aficionado.

“Well he isn’t wearing clothing,” Doug points out slowly, “which is typically the definition of naked.”

Betrayed by the conversation’s sudden turn, the corners of Warlock’s mouth plummet into a grumpy little frown. “Self is not naked. Self is Self.”

“So you just let him walk around naked?” Nate asks in horror. They all recognize the indignant tinge to his voice, the same one that proceeds each of his misguided pet projects.

“Why not? We practically let _you_ walk around naked,” Amara points out.

“It’s Warlock.” Dani shrugs. There’s no simpler way to put it — Warlock is Warlock, operating by his own special rules in his own special world that only mostly aligns with their own. If Nate hasn’t realized that by now, then he’s the one whose worldview is out of sync.

Halfway across the room, Doug lays a hand on Warlock’s tense, angular shoulder and whispers comfortingly, “There’s nothing wrong with being naked, buddy.”

_“Self is not naked!”_

“Wait, wait!” Roberto solemnly raises both arms as though silencing a great crowd to impart some momentous wisdom. “If ‘Lock _is_ the clothes, is he still naked?”

Nate takes this as a deep philosophical question, rubbing at his chin as he thinks it over. “Like that hoodie thing?”

“No, man, when he’s _our_ clothes.”

“Huh?”

“He doesn’t know what you’re talking about.” Dani’s a little tempted to go track down a photo album: there must be something like that in all the boxes they brought over from Utopia, but that’s way more effort than she’s willing to spend at the moment. “We need a demonstration.”

On cue, Warlock wraps his way around Doug and transforms into a perfect copy of the team uniform, then shifts back to sit at his selfsoulfriend’s feet a moment later. “Ta-daa!”

Roberto and Amara give him a brief burst of applause even though it’s hardly the most impressive feat they’ve seen from him.

“You guys really…wear him?” Nate asks incredulously, only to be met with an immediate chorus of affirmation.

“Well, yeah.”

“Obviously not all the time.”

“In case of emergency.”

“Raise your hand if Warlock’s seen you naked!” calls Roberto.

All their hands shoot up without the slightest hesitation or embarrassment, though Nate’s cheeks start reddening on their behalf. Warlock fidgets and folds his knees closer to his chest, vaguely uncomfortable with the way Roberto phrased it, but perfectly incapable of denying it.

“That’s mega weird,” Nate says.

Amara shakes her head. “It’s really not. Warlock does all sorts of things for us—helicopter, flying carpet, submarine…” The list of transport alone could go on forever, but she wiggles her feet on their comfy footrest and adds, “Massage chair.”

“Best television of my _life_ ,” offers Roberto, sighing with appreciation over the memory of that surround system his selfriend whipped up for their last Magnum, P.I. marathon.

“Doug even uses him as a phone,” Dani says.

“I do not!” Doug protests, just as Warlock grins broadly and says, “Self has many useful apps!” His eyes flicker into tiny screens: Tetris blocks plummeting down in a doomed if colorful mess on the left, and a high-stakes round of minesweeper blinking urgently on the right. Not quite anyone’s definition of useful, but he makes his point.

“So you _use_ him?”

Dani rubs her hands over her face. “How do you still not get this? Warlock, are we using you?”

“Emphatic negative! Self enjoys being helpful,” he assures them, a few of the spines of his hair curling into tiny hearts and exclamation points. Doug chuckles and reaches down to tease them back into place.

Still unconvinced, Nate crosses his arms over his chest and pointedly narrows his eyes at the team. Roberto offers him another beer in consolation, but receives one of those squinty, suspicious looks in return, so he shrugs and opens it for himself. Well-meaning as Nate’s judgment may be, it fails to phase a single one of them.

Amara snaps her fingers. “I know! A more hands-on demonstration is what we need.” A smirk. “Or pants-on.”

“Oh no,” Dani groans, but the crinkle of her eyes betrays her amusement.

“ _Oh yes_. You up for it, selfriend?”

Warlock chirps an affirmative, uncoiling the lithe tendrils of his hair from around his selfsoulfriend’s fingers and easing Amara’s weary feet back to the ground. Once his parts are all back in place, he slinks over to loom above Nate with a terrifyingly benign smile on his face.

Everyone looks at Nate, who blanches and scoots back in his chair. “W-what are we doing?”

“Take off your pants,” commands Dani.

“No!”

“Unless you don’t have anything under them,” Doug amends hastily.

“Of course I do!”

A tinge of danger spikes that smirk still on Amara’s lips. “Then there’s really no issue in you taking them _off_.”

Roberto claps a hand onto Nate’s shoulder. “Come on, you know you want to.”

“New Mutants Rule Number One,” Dani finishes with a tight grin, daring him to contradict her. “You’ll never be a real member of the team until you’ve worn Warlock.”

Nate’s eyes are wider than they’ve ever seen them, but when he finds no sympathy in his teammates, he stands and starts unzipping his pants.

“Not quite the stripping you had in mind, is it, Bobby?” Doug deadpans as Roberto shoots him a dirty look.

The moment Nate steps out of his pant legs, Warlock instantly shifts around his bare legs and clothes him in the most obnoxiously golden pants ever witnessed by mankind, too glorious for even the most die-hard Dazzler concert. His circuitry weaves sparkling constellations across Nate’s thighs, tighter than the leather ever was and hugging in all the right places, and he adds a pair of booties for Nate’s bare feet as well.

The others sip at their drinks and try to process the sight before them, oddly overwhelmed and underwhelmed in equal measure.

Before Nate can start whining about taking them off, Roberto blurts out, “Dude, what if we _all_ wore Warlock?”

“All at once?” Amara asks, then gives Roberto’s eager nod a moment of thought. “I…am almost drunk enough to agree to that.” She downs the rest of her can, then allows him to pull her to her feet.

They stand on either side of Nate and his sparkly golden pants, but Warlock doesn’t move to include them until Dani shakes her head and walks over to join them. As soon as she joins the line, he reaches out and envelops them all in techno-organic fabric softer and more durable than any unstable molecules. To everyone’s relief, this time the fit is considerably less form-fitting, closer to Roberto’s baggy jeans than Amara’s leggings.

“How come I’m the only one who had to take their pants off first?” Nate whines, then yelps and turns bright red when Warlock gives him a squeeze.

“Come on Doug, up and at ‘em! This is the kind of bonding experience that makes or breaks a team.” Dani somehow manages to keep a straight face, but he sees her mirth start cracking through the commanding mask.

With a sigh, Doug rises to his feet and goes to stand next to Roberto at the other end of the line. A moment later Warlock completes the ultimate pantsconstruct, glittering brightly like an unlocked achievement in one of his video games. Roberto pumps a first into the air and reaches around for high-fives, even patting at his thigh to make sure his favorite selfriend gets one as well.

Abruptly sober, the girls stare at each other in growing bewilderment, wondering just where the booze went wrong to lead them to such a fate.

Which is precisely when Mrs. Livitz invites herself in through the unlocked front door. “Hello? Lovely neighbors, are you…?”

Warlock manages to shut off his celebratory glow in the nick of time, pretending to be a perfectly normal set of giant pants while a tiny eye-stalk grows up along Doug’s back and peeks over his shoulder. The others have no such lucky disguise, though Amara is half-tempted to let the earth actually swallow her and Nate almost gives himself an aneurysm trying to force a timely return of his more useful powers.

Mrs. Livitz stares at them and they stare right back, the longest minute of their lives stretching between them. She slowly tilts her head, squinting from behind her thick glasses, and they all start babbling at once to forestall her scrutiny.

“We were just—”

“Um, uh—”

“Preparing for the local three-legged race!” Doug exclaims.

Dani shoots him a withering look, but has no answer for the _well let’s see you do better_ glare he sends in return. “They’re doing a five-person version this year. A six-legged race.”

“We thought we’d practice,” Amara adds with a serene, unruffled smile.

“I am brings you prokporzhki prof,” Mrs. Livitz declares proudly. “Very good when rain, keep stomachs happy and warm.”

“Thank you _so_ much!” Dani steps over to thank her more thoroughly, but trips when Warlock hesitates over whether to preserve the pantsform. He keeps clinging to Dani’s leg and the whole team almost crashes down on top of her, fumbling at each other and barely righting themselves in time as Dani grabs the edge of the couch.

Mrs. Livitz clucks at them. “Is looking you needs more practice.”

“Lots more practice,” Doug agrees, covertly elbowing Roberto in the side to silence his sudden burst of laughter.

“I am believe in you.” She offers them an angelic smile, leaves the pot in the kitchen, and heads for the door. “Farewell, lovely neighbors!”

“Bye, Mrs. Livitz!” they all call in unison.

As soon as she’s gone, Warlock tosses them on the couch in their neat little line and squishes them all together in one great big hug under the blanket of his arms. “Sorry, sorry, sorry!” He pats nervously at their hair and shoulders, calmed only by their shared sighs of relief.

“Can I put my pants back on now?” Nate asks in a tiny voice. He doesn’t make a peep when Warlock dutifully picks up his pants and pulls them on him, even bothering to zip them up for him. Nate just sits there miserable and defeated, his lesson well learned.

One look at that dour face and Roberto’s enduring laughter turns infectious, striking Amara down with a matching fit of the giggles.

Doug throws an arm around Warlock’s shoulder, biting back a laugh himself. “So about that movie marathon.”

“Six-legged race? Really?” Dani shakes her head at him.

“Hey, _you_ followed my lead.”

“Hungry,” Nate announces. He tries to extract himself from the couch but finds himself blanketlocked in place. _“Hungry.”_

Warlock snakes an arm all the way to the kitchen and draws it back laden with prokporzhki prod, bowls and spoons and everything else they could possibly need hanging from a line of sprout-like hooks. He hums as he sets a place on each of their laps, serving up dinner with an anxious smile, then flips on the TV and passes Dani the remote.

Nate looks at his teammates on either side, at their unflinching, unflappable commitment to seeing all this as a perfectly ordinary fact of life, and finally gives up. Their definition of normal will take some getting used to, but he’ll give it a shot. For now he contents himself by stuffing his face with potatoes as the others argue over what to watch.

“We are not watching Magnum _again_.”

“We could always watch—”

“If it starts with Star and rhymes with Heck, I swear on the gods above—”

“Warlock, did you just change the channel?”

“Neeeegative?”

“Don’t you lie to me—”

"Crappy Syfy movies, anyone?"


End file.
